Similar name registration should not be allowed.

[Sandra_hakeem]

Op, it's a you problem. How did you not spot out the differences, even when it's crystal clear? Let's assume I'm feeling dizzy, but still trying to surf the forum. How do I trade with a wannabe JollyGood account without clicking on their profile? I've been around Long enough that every profile looks unique in its own way, even in a case of replication like this one. That's not rocket science. Just common sense!

It baffles me that you still don't know, after all these years, how prudent Theymos is in every action/changes he considers to make. This is just unnecessary.

Members should be able to distinguish between "0" and "O", "I" and "1", "5" and "S" etc

Yeahh, that part too.

[KingsDen]

Had a member who registered using a similar username to mine (just different by one character) and it wasn't a big deal because he came into the forum to advertise his business that had a similar domain name to his username

His username was (BitcoinArena)

I think we should not be so brutal towards new users. let there be some sort of freedom. Only if they show signs of ill intent should we act accordingly.

That was great of you. You didn't even bother to leave a neutral tag of disclaimer. That's exactly what many people here will do.

Such tags might reduce the confidence of the user only if they were genuine, but I am also not against it, especially in a situation like yours that the only difference was a punctuation mark.

[logfiles]

Satoshi I believe is the only username that you cannot create a parody account for, the registration will not go through for good reason.

Are you sure about this?

Just search up Satoshi and replace one of the character with let's say "0" instead of "O" and see how many results come up 
Even Theymos has so many accounts with very similar names to his, just different by one or a couple of characters.

Most are actually just brand-new accounts, easily identifiable in an instant. I don't even see why this should cause any form of alarm.

[Churchillvv]

Sometimes I imagine if any of us or you was theymos (ADMIN) what you will do because for no reason I see that some normees are suggesting rules every here and there.

Anyways aside the fact that similar name creation registration usually have some bad intentions, people bare same name in real life and sometimes the nick bane you want to use in the forum has already been use so because someone is baring; Churchillv should I no register with “Churchillvv” ?

The problem you have with it is that the name is quite reputable because when I registered my name I used only one V which represents something to me but realized someone already registered that and I added one more V, so does that mean admin should let me register?

Too much standards coming in the forum in my opinion.

[LoyceV]

It's already difficult to register an account at any popular website: most usernames are taken already. Last time I registered a Gmail address it even recommended to add a number behind it. If the site would also ban lookalikes from registering, it'll be even more difficult to register.

Imposters are tagged and banned on sight

[7juju]

No reputable member of this forum would open an account with a name that's similar to his main account for the sole purpose of scamming. When we see accounts like this, we should know that they are entirely different people that are doing that. Secondly the forum is not the only place were people answer similar names, in different platforms we see people answering seminar names. As long as the alphabets are not the same there's no issue here. No matter how you try to impersonate someone, there will always be a slight difference.

[Donneski]

That could be a fan of jollygood trying to idolise him by choosing a similar name. Not every look-alike username is malicious and some newcomers may genuinely admire reputable members. That said, I still agree that the risk of impersonation is real so a soft warning system would be better than outright blocking registrations.

[Alpha Marine]

I understand your concern, but it's not a big deal. Forum profiles are public. The moment you see the name, activity, number of post and merit of the profile, you will easily tell that it is an impersonator. If you open the profile, you will also see when the account was created, so I don't see how they can successfully scam anybody with that. Except it's just a troll accout or something.
No matter how you do it, people have a role to play to protect themselves from scams. The system cannot protect you 100%. Checking the account youre dealing with is the least you can do to protect yourself from scams.
This particular trend is nothing to worry about, in my opinion.

[Upgrade00]

Are you sure about this?

I may be remembering wrongly. I think I had experimented with it at some point but wasn't able too or it was discussed on a thread I was on. Seeing the amount of similar usernames I'm probably wrong that there was ever such a restriction.

[dkbit98]

You can't stop someone to create accounts with similar names anywhere, not even in bitcointalk forum.
In case someone tries to scam or cheat with similar accounts they should be reported and than banned.
I don't see that adding more restrictions in forum is going to be good for anyone.

[Btcdeybodi]

  Even in real life people do answer same name not to talk of a nickname on the internet that comprises a large number of people. I don't think this should be a problem since you cannot register a username that is already in use except you add some characters to it. Some people added characters to their username because when they were registering, they found out that the one they wanted to use has already been taken. However, there is also a way to differentiate users that bears similar nicknames (difference in characters) which can either be known by their ranks, posting style or overall activity in the forum.

[DYING_S0UL]

No reputable member of this forum would open an account with a name that's similar to his main account for the sole purpose of scamming .....

I'm not referring to this specific situation, but when something like this happens, it's either to troll or a mere coincidence or a lucky guess, whatever u call that. At least that's how I see it. And I also don't believe anybody pays that level of attention (like doing extensive research) before choosing their usernames. I just liked an username I'll try creating account with that, if it isn't available, i might have chosen similar with numbers. That's the level of patience i have.

I don't see that adding more restrictions in forum is going to be good for anyone.

For sure nothing good comes out of this.
It just creates the registration process more complex/messy/annoying (not user friendly).

[SatoPrincess]

Some people are registering with similar names of old members for scam purposes. Some of you will say red tagging them is just okay but let remember that before we may discover them they may have already achieved their purpose. Same name registration is not allowed, same thing should also go for similar names, especially like the example above.

Identity Theft should not be given a chance here.

That’s what the trust system is for. Isn’t it? I have seen similar cases before and a tag always seemed to suffice. Also scam is not moderated on the forum so if that’s your reason for asking Theymos to make changes to the forum then you’re wasting your time.

[Nwada001]

Also scam is not moderated on the forum so if that’s your reason for asking Theymos to make changes to the forum then you’re wasting your time.

Scams are not being moderated in the forum, but matters of impersonation are being taken seriously and handled by moderators, especially when it's a clear case of someone trying to impersonate a high-profile person.

Nuked.

Use Report to moderator button next time.

I nuke them when I see them.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=610210.msg6749041#msg6749041

OP, I saw a thread that is no longer active that was used to report a user whom you suspect to be impersonating others. You can report anyone you suspect to moderators or wake up the thread and allow the mods to handle it. As for applying such suggested restrictions on the forum, that's never going to work.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1147644.msg12139463#msg12139463

[Cookdata]

That could be a fan of jollygood trying to idolise him by choosing a similar name. Not every look-alike username is malicious and some newcomers may genuinely admire reputable members. That said, I still agree that the risk of impersonation is real so a soft warning system would be better than outright blocking registrations.

There is nothing that justify creating of an account very similar to real owner, that's clear impersonating. What happen to Jollygood_fan, Jollygood support and so on instead of hidden the zero with 0, most often the accounts I have seen I the forums have two intentions, either to scam or either the person want to troll which isn't good, I wouldn't be happy either if I found out someone create account similar to mine only to go around dms pretending to be me, that's wrong.

However, I don't support dictatorship. There are instances I have seen some accounts with similar word and both have different meaning, both came from different countries and somehow have similar names but are not even close in any form, both are active independently and I'm surprised how such idea comes to their mind, this kind of suggestions will only make things worst. If a reputed account have notice anything usual, report the accounts and it will either be banned or tagged for everyone safety.

[Asiska02]

Once you see an imposter on this forum, from their intent and activities on their account, you can easily tell and such accounts can be dealt with accordingly like tagging them. Taking actions immediately like banning such accounts could be very cruel because most of this new users may not even know another user in the forum registered an account with same name they want to use already in the past. So if there registrations are not going through and just twisting some words will help them get it done, it would be preferable for them. If such users come with good intent, outrightly banning them will make them see the system here being harshly on newcomers or even discourage them from being here or even want to advertise anything of their true intent.

[Zoomic]

That could be a fan of jollygood trying to idolise him by choosing a similar name. Not every look-alike username is malicious and some newcomers may genuinely admire reputable members. That said, I still agree that the risk of impersonation is real so a soft warning system would be better than outright blocking registrations.

There is nothing that justify creating of an account very similar to real owner, that's clear impersonating. What happen to Jollygood_fan, Jollygood support and so on instead of hidden the zero with 0, most often the accounts I have seen I the forums have two intentions, either to scam or either the person want to troll which isn't good, I wouldn't be happy either if I found out someone create account similar to mine only to go around dms pretending to be me, that's wrong.

I support your point that if someone is a fan of a user and the idolize him according to donneski, they could come up with usernames as jollygood fan etc.
I also agree that the primary reasons for creating these impersonating accounts are for scam and trolling.
While the concern of scamming is often associated with campaign managers. jollygood is not a campaign manager. So, let's assume it is for trolling purposes.

For whatever reasons, it will be fine we all agree that such people are complete idiots polluting this great forum for us.

[mcdouglasx]

It doesn't worry me too much, because if someone gets scammed this way (and I'm sure some will), it's their own fault for how they interact with forum users. I know it's a type of attack that takes advantage of a moment of carelessness, because there are plenty of warnings that tell us if a user is new, their number of posts, merits, and alerts in private messages. We can even protect ourselves from receiving messages from new users.

So why prevent a user from creating a similar name? It would be the equivalent of a user sending money to a BTC address because they didn't thoroughly check the address.

What I mean is that, basically, you're protecting the user from being careless, which could lead to a false sense of security, contrary to what's taught on the forum.

[Smartvirus]

First, I have no idea how such thing can be implemented from technical side. What we consider as similar username? 1 or 2 different characters or different word/letter order, like SuperManBit instead of SuperBitMan? For me it's unclear at all how to implement such thing in effective way.

That’s the truth, it can’t. The system can never recognize such or shouldn’t be allowed to recognize such and it’s not abnormal or out of place for people to go by similar names, as much as we don’t find it funny.
I can tell you how shocked I was when I came by the user Scamvirus… I had to look into the user and even sent a few messages through for a convo but, the user is apparently a good guy and doing well by the forum.

Where it becomes an issue is when the new user tries to use such name to perpetuate evil and try to make it look as though it’s from a reputable user. That becomes a problem and that’s where the tags come in.

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

Some people are registering with similar names of old members for scam purposes. Some of you will say red tagging them is just okay but let remember that before we may discover them they may have already achieved their purpose. Same name registration is not allowed, same thing should also go for similar names, especially like the example above.

Identity Theft should not be given a chance here.

Before they use those accounts to scam, you have no reasons to say that they created such accounts for scamming. Forum is very respected freedom so it's not logic to restrict people in account registration and name. They're all free to choose usernames they want, even it is similar to already existing accounts, but it's unfair to say you joined the forum earlier than me, and I can not register my account with a similar username like yours.

People as early comers or late comers have all equal rights to use any username they like if nobody used it before.